apoc:13:1-6

How will he become god to the world? How will he get so much power? Well they're going to be amazed at him. It says right there, they're going to be amazed, astounded. And they're going to follow him. Why? Well it seems to be connected to the fact that one of his heads is as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed. What does this mean? Well the word "slain," here is the very same word used back in chapter 5 verse 6. John saw there a Lamb standing as if slain, and that's the Lamb of God. This empire, one of its heads is going to bear a mortal wound, or the evidence of a mortal wound. The scar that would indicate a mortal wound. Look down at verse 12 of chapter 13, the middle of the verse. "He makes the earth and those who dwell in it worship the first beast whose fatal wound was healed." Now there's the commentary on what this is

. ABut that is precisely the same three animals that are described in the book of Revelation. Now why does Daniel describe the Babylonian kingdom in the way that he does like a lion? Well because of its fierce consuming power. Why does he describe Medo-Persia as a bear? Well obviously because of its ferocious strength and might and stability. Why does he describe Greece as a leopard? Because it moves swiftly and rapidly across the earth, particularly under the conquering of none other than Alexander the Great. And so the images of those animals, which by the way were common in Palestine...a bear and a lion, a mountain lion and a leopard. They give some dramatic emphasis to the character of the nations that are being shown to Daniel in the vision.

By the way, if you'll look at verse 7 again, there was a fourth beast, and this one is an indescribable one. It just says, "Dreadful, terrifying, extremely strong, with large iron teeth, devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet and it was different from all the beasts that were before it and it's the one that had the ten horns." That's Rome. So that parallels, doesn't it, the Daniel 2 image of the statue where the final form, Rome, was iron and it had the ten toes which are parallel here to the ten horns in this comparative image.

Now go back to Revelation chapter 13, we'll weave that in. Here we see again those same animals which were common to that part of the world, and I think that's why they're used. The leopard, the bear and the lion, but please notice, this time they are all embodied in the one beast. The power of Babylon in its greatness is there, the strength and stability, fierceness of Medo-Persia is there, the swiftness and the alacrity and speed of Greece is there. In other words, this final form of world government, a revived Roman empire, a final world empire that proceeds out of the old location of Rome to cover the globe embodies all the fierceness of all those prior world kingdoms.

One other interesting note, they're given in reverse order in verse 2. In Daniel it's lion, bear, leopard. Here it's leopard, bear, lion. And the reason is very simple, Daniel was going from Babylon to Medo-Persia to Greece because he was on the front end of it. John in seeing the image is going from where he is back from Greece to Medo-Persia to Babylon. And so they're simply placed in reversed order as John recites history looking at it from his viewpoint, Daniel recites it from his viewpoint before it happened, or while it's still in the form of Babylon. When Daniel described the world empires they were to come. When John describes them, they've already come and gone.

Now to everyone in the land of Palestine in Daniel's time and in the time of the writing of Revelation, these animals would combine all of the symbols of speed and ferocity and power and strength and tenacity and ravenous appetite and devouring, they would sum up everything that was wicked and evil and rapacious and vicious and frightening. And they are all embodied in this final form of world government, which was, in a sense, depicted by the Roman power which was in Daniel's vision in chapter 7 an indescribable beast even then, and it is equally indescribable here. That fourth beast, that unique one that doesn't have an animal name, was something beyond even an animal and here in its final form it is still beyond that though it encompasses all of the worst of those beasts.

So John is looking at the consummate vicious frightening empire. Satan then who is the god of this world brings into one all the fierceness of the others, all the powers of dominion to form a world government to stop Jesus Christ. And it's all headed up in this one individual called the Antichrist.

Now go back to verse 2. "And the dragon gave to him his power and his throne and great authority." The weird and wild messiah of the devil, somebody called him, has great power. That's talking about sheer force. He really can't be halted. God steps back and lets him run amuck. And there is no human element to stop him.

You say, "What about the holy angels?" They're called off. The Lord Himself lets them run their gamut. Not only do they have force but throne, that's regal dominion. They're absolutely in charge. This is not just a rebel army, this is not a coup being pulled off from the ranks. These powerful, powerful, demon spirits who have infested the world have immense power and they wield it from regal dominion. And then he says, "And great authority." That is they have a right to act, they have freedom to act, they have no accountability, they have no restraint, no one is stopping them from doing anything that they want to do. It's not like now. It's going to be during that time that Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 when the one who hinders, who restrains steps back. And all restraint is gone. Remember now, all the demons of the universe are on the earth for the first time in human history. Out of the pit they've come, freed from their bindings at the Euphrates, the two hundred million and the ones in heaven cast down to the earth. They're all here and they're all free to act and God restrains absolutely nothing.

And at the same time they're creating their fury and harming people and killing people, the first batch of them that come out of the pit can only harm, the next wave of them can kill. And at the same time God is wreaking havoc by pouring out the fury of a collapsing universe on the heads of those in the world. The holocaust is unimaginable.

Some people always ask, and I think it's a legitimate question...what is the circumstance that allows this man to rise? How does he rise to this place of power? And I would just remind you that there need to be certain conditions to make this happen and I think we're right there, as I said in the very beginning, people want a man, they're looking for a leader. A dictator never thrusts his rule upon the people from the top down without some provocation. And inevitably a man rises to this kind of rule because of chaos. When the chaos gets so bad and there are no answers and no solution, you have the perfect situation for leadership to develop. That is true in any kind of leadership. Leaders are born in the crisis. Leaders rise in the midst of the unsolvable problems. Leaders come to the top when there are no solutions. It is in the frightening and horrible chaos of the world that this man is able to rise empowered by Satan and sees authority in the midst of emergency. So successful will his coup be that men will be thrilled by his masterly genius and accept the principle that only an imperial form of government will be able to give them lasting peace. They'll chuck democracy. They'll throw aside their freedoms just for peace. This man will come on the scene at the beginning of the Tribulation and he will bring peace which tells us that before that happens there's going to be utter worldwide chaos. That would mean that when the church is taken out of the world, it will most likely be in a time of great chaos.

Think about Germany in the mid nineteen thirties, I don't know if you go back to that time in your history in the things you've studied, but if you do you would find out that Hitler didn't just pop up out of nowhere. He didn't come from the top down. He came from the bottom up. Why? Because people in Germany in the thirties were in economic despair. They were in spiritual despair. There was political chaos. They were experiencing economic depression. Small business were collapsing all over Germany one by one in every city. Millions of people were out of work. It was a desperate time and people were looking for somebody to lead them out. And Hitler knew the mood of the people and the strategy of the moment. Adolph Hitler started out as a lowly corporeal, worked his way up in the Reichstad(?) until he was at last in charge of everything. He emerged from absolute and utter obscurity to become the central figure in the world and himself demon possessed. From that position of power which he gained because of the chaos, he plunged the whole of Europe into his bloody reign of terror which was a preview of what it will be like on a worldwide scale when the Antichrist comes. One greater than Hitler will arise out of the chaos that will prevail in the world and be a man of marvelous appearance, transcendent ability and indescribable magnetism. The problem is, he will be possessed and indwelt and moved by a demon out of the abyss. He will have great authority. The world will give the authority for all of it into his hands.

So his ancestry and his authority, thirdly his acclaim...his acclaim. Verse 3, "And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast." And verse 4 says, "They worshiped the dragon." We'll talk about that in a moment fatal wound that was healed. Verse 14, the end of the verse, "The beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life." Chapter 17 verse 8, "The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss." And then verse 11, "The beast which was and is not is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven and goes to destruction."

Now all of this is telling us very clearly that this beast receives a mortal wound. It is said in chapter 13 verse 12 that it was the beast that was wounded, verse 14 the beast that was wounded, chapter 17 verses 8 and 11 the beast that was wounded. And here in verse 3 it says that one of his heads was wounded. That leaves us with a bit of a difficulty. One of the heads had a mortal killing wound. What does this mean? Well, first of all, let me let you know there are two options to choose from. The first is that it refers to one of the kingdoms that was destroyed and comes back. If we interpret it that way then it would be that the head that was wounded would be the head representing what empire? Rome which would be the fifth, the one that...the sixth rather, the one that was when John was writing which was devastated and destroyed. The Roman Empire, you know, was shattered, but it comes back to life. And that is the amazing miracle, the revival of the Roman Empire. That is the thing which amazes the whole world that this man can rise to recreate this confederacy of Rome, this revived Europe, this new Roman Empire. And from the great power exhibited in the European Common Market, the European Coalition, the New Europe, from the evidence of his immense ability to lead there which is going to mean that he's got to bring together western Europe and eastern Europe, those things are already in motion, that he's got to reconstitute that territory that once was the heart and soul of the Roman Empire. When he proves that he can do that, their amazement over his ability to accomplish that and to revive that once killed empire is going to cause the amazement of the world and therefore cause them to fall at his feet and simply say, "If you can do that there, have the world, will you? Take over all the rest."

That's very possible as an interpretation. What makes it somewhat difficult, it makes a lot of sense in verse 4...3 rather to interpret it that way because it's just one of the heads that's been slain, but when you go to those other passages you have the individual himself being slain. And then you have him coming up out of the abyss. Now where did we start this chapter? Well we started it with the devil standing on the seashore and this beast coming up out of the abyss.

Here's another option, that the Antichrist goes through the first part of the Tribulation and is killed. And he at that point is a great world leader, but he comes back and he comes back to life only when he comes back to life he's more than a great world leader. He is now empowered by a demon from the abyss.

Whether it is the revival of the old Roman Empire and the man's ability to pull together the terrible discordant countries of Europe, which by the way seem to me to be fracturing more every day we live. We talk about a unified economy in Europe and a Euro-dollar, and they're all over there shooting each other. And it seems to be escalating. And if he can pull all of that together